Feijóo shields his 30 mayors and changes eleven candidates to conquer the capitals that resist the PP

The Partido Popular will face the 2027 municipal elections with all its provincial capital mayors protected and a renewal concentrated in cities where it remains in opposition. The National Electoral Committee confirmed this Friday that the 30 popular councilors will repeat as candidates and that there will be eleven new faces among the 20 capitals that the party does not yet govern.

Génova thus changes 55% of its posters in the capitals that resist it, but keeps intact the municipal core conquered in 2023. The complete list includes the 50 provincial capitals and adds Santiago de Compostela and Mérida due to their status as autonomous capitals.

The announcement was made in A Coruña by the president of the National Electoral Committee, Diego Calvo, and the general secretary of the PP, Miguel Tellado. Alberto Núñez Feijóo will gather the candidates this Saturday in the Cidade da Cultura in Santiago, where the party wants to stage the beginning of a campaign that arrives ten months early.

Almeida, Catalá and Sanz keep their positions

The main mayors of the PP will be on the ballot again. José Luis Martínez-Almeida will repeat in Madrid, María José Catalá in Valencia, José Luis Sanz in Seville and Natalia Chueca in Zaragoza. Luis Barcala in Alicante, Marifrán Carazo in Granada, Bruno García in Cádiz, Jaime Martínez in Palma and Gema Igual in Santander will also continue.

The most striking case is again that of Francisco de la Torre, who will aspire to a seventh consecutive victory in Malaga. The mayor, who has governed the city since 2000, will reach the 2027 elections at 84 years old and more than a quarter of a century at the head of the City Council.

Andalusia represents the clearest commitment to continuity. The PP retains seven of its eight candidates who already govern and only changes its poster in Jaén, the only Andalusian capital it keeps out of its control. Isabel Azañón will replace Agustín González Romo, who became mayor after the 2023 elections, but was ousted in 2025 by a motion of no confidence promoted by the PSOE and Jaén Merece Más.

Murcia presents a different situation. Rebeca Pérez will be the candidate after assuming the Mayoralty after the death of José Ballesta, head of the PP list in 2023. Génova incorporates her into the block of councilors who will defend municipal power, although it will be the first time she heads the ballot.

Castilla y León concentrates almost half of the replacements

Five of the eleven changes approved by the national leadership are in Castilla y León. The PP will debut candidates in Ávila, León, Palencia, Soria, and Zamora, the five regional capitals where it is currently out of municipal government.

Deputy Patricia Rodríguez will try to recover Ávila, a city governed for more than three decades by the PP until the victory of Por Ávila in 2019. She replaces Alicia García, who currently serves as the popular spokesperson in the Senate.

In León, the candidacy will fall to David Fernández, municipal spokesperson after the internal crisis that the popular group went through at the beginning of the term. Fernández replaces Margarita Torres and will face socialist José Antonio Diez, who has governed the city since 2019.

Víctor Torres will head the list for Palencia after Alfonso Polanco's municipal departure, while senator José Manuel Hernando will be the candidate in Soria. The PP seeks to make inroads in a capital that for years has been one of the main municipal strongholds of the PSOE, now with Javier Antón as mayor after Carlos Martínez's departure.

Elvira Velasco will be the candidate in Zamora instead of Jesús María Prada. The replacement comes while Prada is being investigated for alleged fraud related to subsidies granted for the organization of mountain races. The city has been governed by Izquierda Unida since 2015 and will also debut a candidate after Francisco Guarido's withdrawal.

In the four Castilian-Leonese capitals controlled by the PP, the current mayors will continue. Cristina Ayala will repeat in Burgos, Carlos García Carbayo in Salamanca, José Mazarías in Segovia, and Jesús Julio Carnero in Valladolid. Ayala governs in a minority after Vox's departure from the municipal executive, while Carnero maintains his coalition with the ultra-right formation.

Double change in the Canary Islands

The PP renews its two candidacies in the Canary Islands capitals. The regional Minister of Education and former mayor of Moya, Poli Suárez, will head the list for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, while Carmen Pérez will be the candidate in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Feijóo presented Pérez this Friday at an event held at the Tenerife Espacio de las Artes. The new candidate replaces Carlos Tarife, the fourth aspirant that the PP had used in the last four municipal elections in the capital of Tenerife.

The renewal also reaches Girona. Daniel Ruiz, provincial president of the PP and 28 years old, will relieve Jaume Veray, removed from the front line for health reasons. In the other three Catalan capitals, Daniel Sirera will continue in Barcelona, Xavier Palau in Lleida, and Maria Mercè Martorell in Tarragona.

The three managed to improve popular representation in 2023. Sirera went from two to four councilors in Barcelona, Palau rose from two to five in Lleida, and Martorell doubled the municipal group of Tarragona to reach four councilors. The Catalan PP wants to take advantage of these results to continue recovering the ground lost during the years of the procés.

Ourense and Vitoria also debut candidates

Ana Méndez will be the new PP candidate in Ourense. The current municipal spokesperson, who occupied the second position on Manuel Cabezas' list in 2023, will face mayor Gonzalo Pérez Jácome for the first time as head of the list.

The PP currently governs Lugo and keeps Elena Candia as a candidate, while Miguel Lorenzo will repeat in A Coruña. Lorenzo won the A Coruña elections in 2023 with 12 councilors, one more than the PSOE, but the support of the BNG allowed Inés Rey to retain the Mayor's Office.

Rafa Domínguez will face his third attempt in Pontevedra after the PP was also the most voted party in 2023. Borja Verea will repeat in Santiago de Compostela. The only Galician novelty is, therefore, in Ourense.

In the Basque Country, Iñaki García Calvo will replace Ainhoa Domaica as a candidate in Vitoria. Esther Martínez will continue at the head of the PP in Bilbao and Borja Corominas will repeat in San Sebastián, two cities where the popular party maintains a reduced municipal presence.

The PP takes the local campaign against Sánchez

The presentation of the candidacies has also served Miguel Tellado to transfer the national offensive against Pedro Sánchez to the local elections. "The goal is to sweep the PSOE in the 2027 municipal elections," proclaimed the general secretary of the PP.

Tellado has dedicated a good part of his speech to the judicial procedures affecting the PSOE and the environment of the President of the Government. Génova's number two has contrasted the PP's electoral preparation with a Socialist Party that, according to his words, is "mired in internal battles, with knives drawn."

The party arrives at this election after having gone from nine to 30 mayoralties of provincial capitals in 2023. That growth was accompanied by agreements with the far-right Vox in several cities, some still in force and others broken during the mandate.

Of the 50 confirmed provincial candidacies, 21 will be headed by women, 42% of the total. The presentation event will begin this Saturday at 10:30 a.m. in Santiago de Compostela, with Feijóo surrounded by his mayors and the new aspirants who must try to expand the PP's municipal map in May 2027.